So I went ahead and joined the gel stain fun and now I have a gel stained front door. I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed with the stuff. It has only been a couple weeks since I completed my gel stain projects, but the stain has held up perfectly through thunder storm and boiling sunlight.
Keep reading to find out how I used gel stain to add curb appeal to our home.
Find the video version here.
The Stain
After all of the projects you will see below, I still have about 1/4 a pint of my gel stain left. This stuff goes a LONG way! Find this exact gel stain here.
Shut the Front Door
So this is the completely uninspiring before shot of the front door. All I did to prep the door for the stain is give it a good scrub with a Magic Eraser. The paint on the door was not a glossy finish so I didn’t bother sanding it before staining. If you have a high gloss door, I would advise giving it a good sand.
Starting with the panels of the door, I used long fluid strokes to apply the stain. I used the old salvaged door planter on the right as a reference for which direction the wood grain would be going on a real wood door. You can use a picture if you don’t have any doors laying around.
The paint strokes will give you the wood look so we want them going in the right directions to give the gel stained front door a more realistic look.
This is what my door looked like after one coat of gel stain.
A quick tip when working with gel stain is to get a very small amount on your brush and blending it around with long strokes.
Here we are after two coats. I let the door dry for 24 hours before I painted on the second coat. I didn’t find that the stain darkened as it dried. Also, you will want to be sure the stain in completely dry before attempting a second coat. Wet gel stain will wipe off and smudge if you try to go over it when it is still tacky.
The Posts
Of coarse I didn’t stop with just a gel stained front door. I had planned to wrap my front porch posts with real wood, but after adding up the costs, I just couldn’t justify spending money on that project for a house we may not be keeping. Hence I decided to give the gel stain a try on the posts.
I did give the posts a fresh coat of paint before applying the gel stain.
I grabbed a 1×6 board and wrapped the bottom of the posts that were slightly damaged. This gave the posts a chunkier more realistic look as well.
Window Boxes
For even more gel stain action, I threw together some super easy window boxes. I used 1×6 lumber for this project.
I made my window boxes 2/3 the length of my windows.
I cut three pieces at 2/3 the length of my window then nailed those pieces together. Then I measured the total width of the box and cut my end pieces to fit (7 inches in this case).
After sanding, I painted the boxes white so that after staining, they would mach my posts and gel stained front door.
To mount the boxes, I used some plane white metal brackets that I already had and gave them a coat of black spray paint.
Finished Products
I know DIY projects are not “supposed” to be cheap and easy, but I’m pretty happy with how far $17.00 worth of gel stain got me. I’m thinking since I’ve got so much gel stain left, we are going to need some matching shutters.
